Heidi Yssennagger and the Post-Operative Body: An appraisal.
Heidi Yssennagger’s art concerns itself with issues relating to body image, identity and health. These are presented within the locus of the body, articulated through what is simultaneously the object, subject, and abject: the post-operative body. In the formal space of the figure Yssennagger exposes a subjective reality that uses health and illness as analytical tools in her exploration of the female form as it was formulated in classical painting. The post-operative body provides an example in which the traditional aesthetic categories of beauty that were imposed on the female nude are questioned and challenged. Rather than acting solely as a feminist critique of the classical form, Yssennagger’s art reminds us of our unstable relationship with health and is also an instance in which beauty enters a bodily state that is often deemed unworthy of representation.
In this appraisal of Yssennagger’s art I will be looking at several of her artworks as well as exploring them in relation to their relevance within ongoing critiques of beauty. However, the most important contention that requires consideration is whether it is even possible to include illness and dysfunction into categories of the beautiful. Health has always played an integral part within the formulations of beauty.
Frankenstein (2007) depicts a figure looking at herself in a mirror whilst reclining on a hospital bed. The pose is familiar as this painting is in fact a transcription of Velasquez’s Rokeby Venus (1651) but the parody is somewhat unnerving. The figure whose back faces the viewer is of aesthetically pleasing form; the body is composed, proportional, and balanced. This figure is the object of the painting, silent and unobtrusive; well within the norms of the classical concept of a beautiful nude. However, the edges of the painting are lined with red curtains as if the hospital bed is a stage and a role is being played out, as if the hospital environment expects certain behaviour. The bed itself is cold, mechanical and menacing, suggesting isolation. The silent space of the infirm, but the beautiful nude lying on it creates an unnatural tension.
But the mirror exposes another reality. In this image the reclining figure, faced forward, is accompanied by the luminous presence of an ileostomy bag. The narcissism of Velasquez’s Venus had been replaced by the study of ones own body and its failures. In essence it is Venus dethroned, an idyll made vacuous. The manifestation of the ileostomy bag agitates and unnerves the idea of a ‘nude’; it makes the beauty first observed even more ambivalent. Although Yssennagger on the one hand occupies the place of passive object, assuming the posture of the silent model onto which ideals are painted, she simultaneously acts as the speaking subject in the mirror image.
Intravenus (2007) is a transcription of Manet’s Olympia and acts as a companion piece to Frankenstein. The more detailed view of the ileostomy bag reveals the care and attention with which it is painted. This object leaves the viewer somewhat suspended because even though there is an abnormality in the classical view of bodily beauty it isn’t necessarily a shocking object. There is a definitive affection attached to it, a beauty that is ambivalent. This ambivalence is maintained because the ileostomy bag is an external element, the outside threatening the inside, constantly a reminder of the failures of the body. Whilst at the same time it acts in conjunction with the body, it aids in functional processes, it is a site of rectification. But it must be noted clearly: the ileostomy bag does not act as a metaphor, it does not stand for anything else, it is an object that works with the body whilst maintaining an ambivalent relationship to the ideological formulations of the body. It does not seek to distract from the subject’s health, or beauty, instead, it interrogates them.
Viewing the ileostomy bag along these lines gives rise to a contentious consideration: which of the two is actually the speaking subject? Is it the body or the ileostomy bag? If we were to remove the ileostomy bag from the painting what would be left? Besides the title which explicitly refers to monstrosity, the image is made up of aesthetically pleasing shapes and forms, the body itself is beautiful. It is the ileostomy bag that haunts these paintings and causes disruption. The eye is instantly drawn towards it, enticed by its very sight; it is neither overtly grotesque, nor beautiful. Out of this appears an ambiguous and complex relationship between the figure and the ileostomy bag.
The mirroring of images is a recurring motif in Yssennagger’s art, revealing what is hidden and draws both sticking parallels between the classical nude and the infirm. Where the nude is idealized and marveled at for its genius, the infirm is hidden and considered abnormal, despite this distinction they both occupy a similar space: silence. The nude says nothing but its ideal is heralded, and the infirm says nothing but its reality is curtained. On another level the mirroring reminds us of the importance of perception, how we view our bodies and what mediates perception.
The feminist dimension of Yssennagger’s art lies in the reclamation of the female nude from the grip of traditional forms. This re-appropriation posits itself in stark opposition to the platonic concepts of beauty as well as the classical gaze that idealized the female form from within a male paradigm. What becomes apparent out of this parodying is not just an attempt to reclaim the female body, but also the beautification of the post-operative body. However, the presence of the ileostomy bag posits more penetrating questions pertaining to bodily identity. In Venus, Scarred (2004) ileostomy bags are sewn together into the form of a female torso. Here the ileostomy bags become identity; they interrogate the body and become the body. In Reflections of me (2006) this idea is furthered as the faces of the two figures that occupy the painting are absent, all that remains is part of the body and the ileostomy bag. The usual site for reading identity has withered, leaving the ileostomy bag as the only feature that can be read into as an identifying feature.
Excorsing the Demons (2007) is a more disturbing image than those of the aforementioned paintings. It reveals the cathartic space that painting occupies and how it in itself informs the identity of Yssennagger’s bodies. As she is her own model, the paintings are complexly self-referential and are in constant dialogue with the artist’s perception whilst at the very same moment this perception is questioned.
The parodying of classical paintings is not a new concept; however, Yssennagger’s art occupies a strange place. The figurative formulation of the post-operative body undermine the performative nature of both feminist and body art, opening up new methods by which to explore it. Although her art has elements of documentation to it, in depth and even poetic insights into illness and recovery that aren’t necessarily possible within the structures of performative body art are revealed. Painting was a much ignored medium for the representation of these issues, but in this instance appears to have resurfaced with an apt and insightful study of the post-operative body.
Viewing Heidi Yssennagger’s art remains difficult; the expose of the post-operative body through an extremely personal study of the body and its beauty will persist to be jarring. Her nudes are revealed with all their troubles, doubts, pains and accidents, but also with their affection and beauty – a subjective body. It is only within this subjective reality of the body that illness or the fallout of illness can become beautiful. Perhaps it is the beauty of catharsis or the conciliation of a new bodily identity that occupies the centre of these paintings, but a beauty has been found.
Jonathan Wills.
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